


Liar, Liar

by leechailatten



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Mob, Assassination, Clubbing, Guns, Love/Hate, M/M, Minor Violence, Smut, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:21:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26913568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leechailatten/pseuds/leechailatten
Summary: "Maybe Mark wasn't being the most coherent human being that night, who is when you are several glasses of booze into the night, tired and with thousand of untouched dreams spending your first night in a new city? He couldn't be blamed for his certitude about the sheer necessity of talking to Wong Yukhei right away."
Relationships: Mark Lee/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	Liar, Liar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xxlrrlxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxlrrlxx/gifts).



**I.**

Why is life like it is? The major headache of philosophers through the years had been questioning this. What determines the people you meet through it? What does it take for events to happen and to which rate can they change the course of fate? 

Why is the universe… so cruel? 

Donghyuk opened the door of the studio, and quickly, a cloud of dusty air welcomed him in a peaceful way that was somehow comforting. 

After him, the steady walk of his senior and friend for a life, Mark Lee, toured past his stopped figure under the threshold and pushed him aside gently in order to peep inside their new residence and workplace.

Europe had been nice to finalize their studies, the boiling ambience of new tendencies, nurturing culture and intellectuals from very different places made them feel like Korea was big yet not the entire world. 

Being sincere, Mark would have been back to Seoul after the degree, probably, bringing his refreshed ideas to his mother nation and maybe trying to apply a half asian half western model to the now changing and to-be-modern cities, trying to shine in their birthplace, running a race against all the other architects that were giving a bit of their pioner ideas. But Donghyuk had bigger ideas and it was easy to make them find a root inside Mark’s avid and ambitious character.

The floor, despite being slightly scratched by years of previous tenants, was a warm extension of various tones of wooden browns, that stretched to the aseptic white walls that enveloped the place, creating a space that was big enough for them two to share the fees but just a starting point for the length of their idea of success and upcoming ganancies. 

Provisional, that’s the adjective to be given to the two room condo, with a kitchen, a small bathroom and, letting it be said, a spacious salon to place their work tables and some couches. 

But what else could two vibrant youths ask for in the frantic New York? The city of dreams- or so they said-, a pool where cultures and diversity had become the new fetish of the businessman to invest money on, if not for progression, for pretending; where a significant building plan for a skyscraper would be paid with high fundings due to the reduced cost of building vertically and their collected patrimony had bore a myriad of parties, luxury and careless joy. 

They barely needed anything more beyond their eagerness, the energy that bubbled in their chest ready to go for all of it, to learn something more. After all, Mark was barely counting twenty-two that year, he wasn’t especially bothered by the quality of the pallet he would be sleeping on if there was a decent mattress and some sheets. 

The eldest of the friends walked in, running his hand over the white smooth walls, feeling their texture and temperature, then he stopped and fisted his hand to give a couple of hits on the wall. 

He nodded, apparently pleased with the handiwork of the structure, guessed Donghyuk, not really paying attention.

“For the amount of american dollars per month, I have to say the landlady has been nice enough with this attic” commented Mark, making his considerably big bundle of luggage to the side, and proceeded to kick his shoes off to step past the entrance hall. 

Donghyuk reacted, as well, closing the door behind them and following him to the open space that was the living room.

The ceilings were low, with some old naked wood beams sustaining them, but it had nice lighting coming from the rectangles of daylight, whose glass were a bit spotted but still clear enough to see through without asking the landlady to change them. 

Mark approached to take a look at the view from that place that apparently had become his house, judging by how Donghyuk was checking everything already like it was his. 

It was five floors high and the windows met with the street, where the yellow taxis and rushed people were making their ways towards their destination. Next to that screen to the world, the temperature slightly cooled down, but the heat insulation was not that bad. 

He nodded without many more adornations “It’s convenient. Maybe it’d be noise at nights, but nothing I can’t ignore, I guess”

“Noisy, noisy…” stammered Donghyuk “We are in New York! The ones that need to be noisy are none but us.”

“Oh my Jesus” said Mark, rolling his eyes amused, to his younger friend before puffing hard enough to move the black strands of hair that escaped the gentle foam of his hairstyle and were falling on his eyes “Take a break, you are a handful”

“I can’t stop, there are so many things to do already”

“Allow me to feel sloth” chuckled the eldest, causing Donghyuk to be the one rolling his eyes that time around “I don’t like how you are sounding, we just arrived after all that razzle-dazzle with paperwork and that woman that was late to give us our keys, and you still speak with that voice of… having a plan.”

“Listen”

“Oh!” whined Mark, this time truly jaded as he discovered that Donghyuk was about to shoot something to him in the way he was just foreseeing. “You have one”

As if he didn’t know him. Donghyuk, his best friend. The one that could scold him as good as he could motivate him and that made him hold a loyalty that Mark may have never granted to anyone if it wasn’t for him. 

He awakened his sympathy enough to stick together for a long time, through thin and thick.

“Shut your mouth, Mark Lee, and stop complaining without even hearing me, what I have planned is not that big of a deal"

"Fine" he admitted, agreeing with the fact that his friend still had to expose his idea. But it smelled fishy for him and he soon would be discovering why. "Give it up for me, what is that compromise you want to involve me in?" 

"I just thought we should go out tonight, you know? A club, bar or something, because…" 

"That's exactly what I wanted to avoid"

"...there's a lot of potential colleagues and investors out in this city" continued Donghyuk, widely disregarding his best friend's hesitation with the topic. 

The youngest was relentless with the matter everyday, it was necessary for him to insist, he was unyielding, which was one of the main reasons for Mark to become so sensitive to be dragged around in order to confront the situations Donghyuk pushed him into. 

To be more than sincere, the young architect slightly detested that side of Donghyuk, that was so quick to ride him up the wall and wanted to be so stern. 

Especially with the way he had clasped his hands on his shoulders 

"Mark, give it a chance you can't be like this all the time."

"You know I would eat any interview for a contract if they were just held in a restaurant or somewhere else" said Mark sighing with the weight of understatement and almost resignation. “If they were fair”

"You are…" the eldest looked at his friend, who was holding him by his shoulders, and had made a stop on his phrasing, looking at him deeply.

"What? What am I?" He asked genuinely intrigued with his friend's thoughts. 

Donghyuk gave him a sincere smile and a gentle sigh before shaking him a bit with the hold he had of his body. "A diamond in the rough. You just need to do a little bit of polishing, and we can get it right if we meet the right people." 

"So a man goes out of Paris to be dragged into more trouble by his friend?" said Mark, actually wanting to turn the situation around and laugh about it, acknowledging that his friend had a point with his pesquises. 

"You know what rich men like to do and where to find them, and I know you have that hotel complex project in your mind. It's not going to be launched by itself no matter how good it is, without the money for it..."

"Don't make it long, I know what you are suggesting already. I know the process of beguiling an investor, I have been living under capitalism for a while, just like you" 

"Then go for it, goddammit!" Concluded Donghyuk, clicking his tongue to emphasize his point. "And besides, I had been mailing with an acquaintance of mine that is living here in New York. I agreed with his invitation to guide us around tonight."

"So you had already settled us up!?"

"He is kind-hearted," said Donghyuk, ignoring the complaints of his friend again, for faster and more convenient results. "You will find it's not going to be as dark as you believe".

“Oh, have you been playing ‘round with someone that’s not me?” joked Mark, getting a hold of a humorous tone that made Donghyuk knit his eyebrows with a half annoyed grimace. He deserved it, or that's what the youngest considered. “Have I been replaced by someone else in your heart? Cheater...”

“Don’t play dumb” whined the youngest, letting go of him. He seemed actually annoyed but Mark couldn't tell why that kind of joke molested him so much every time. “His name is Huang Renjun, we met last summer when we got back to Korea for break, nothing else. But he is a journalism student, like myself, and can show us around the important circles. See? Contacts."

"Whatever"

"I tell you he is so moony we got to know each other because I stepped on his glasses by accident but anyways, I thought he was good-natured and started talking with him from time to time. You can trust him with this.”

“As expected from you, pestering everyone you are interested on”

“I’m not like that!” he protested, annoyed this time for real, but Mark topped everything with a sonorous laugh, finally revealing he was just being a pain in the ass on purpose, which made Donghyuk just follow and laugh with him.

“Fine, going out tonight, but you owe me a favor, and my brain doesn't forget anything. I'm less annoying than you but equally determined” 

"That's my boy" 

**II.**

Renjun, indeed, couldn’t have been more innocuous looking. 

As he appeared walking down the street with a powder yellow hoodie, a black beanie and a set of golden rimmed glasses that matched the set, the architect started to understand what Donghyuk had meant, assuring that he wasn’t ‘that dark’. 

He was a rather short fellow, lean, around their age, asian as his name suggested, with dyed pink hair peeking out from under his headwear. In conclusion, he could have looked like a child if it wasn’t for something strong that edged under his appearance and the sharp line of his jaw under his skin, that granted him a rather attractive look. 

As soon as he had shortened the distance that separated him from the two men, he gave a smile of sweetened temper, and briefly hugged Donghyuk with a tap on his back. 

“Hyuk, finally! It’s so unconventional to meet up with you here, I could almost say that the air of this city is not what matches you the better” he said cheerfully as greeting, with a small cackle and a polite gesture. 

Mark was surprised, actually to discover his presence. 

He didn’t know why but all his facade was like out of a freaking library. Donghyuk had told him that Renjun’s profession was being a journalist, and he also mentioned something surrounding him having chinese notions, but the older one wouldn’t have said, without seeing him first, that someone could commit so much to the stereotypical look of an author. Maybe it wasn’t in his clothes, but his tone and enunciation of every syllable sounded like he was to give an approach to a Li Bai poem out of a sudden.

“Fool of me, I thought I was overdressing” said Donghyuk with a touch of humorous sarcasm, brushing a hand over his shoulder that had been covered under the neat look of a navy denim jacket. 

In Mark’s modest opinion the writer wasn’t really overdressed, he looked fine, but he himself had decided to get by with a bit more of a fitting outfit for going oy, loyal to a cool black t-shirt with messy scribbles tucked inside ripped jeans and his hair slicked back. Maybe there was a difference between their commitment with the session.

Mark was not totally disinclined with the idea, something about clubbing in their first night out repelled him, but he admitted it could be interesting if done correctly.

Renjun kept his smile shining, conversing with Donghyuk as they walked “I didn’t mean that, you know. But the air in New York… sometimes it feels meaner than the one in Seoul”

“Seems fresh to me”

“Well, don’t breathe in too deep then, because you will be disappointed fast”

“No city has clean air nowadays, man”

“You got a point”

Donghyuk laughed with the joke, and finally turned his body a bit. He was in a good mood, and Mark knew it for the gleam of his smile, so he wasn’t barely surprised when his hand rested gently on the small of his back, pushing him a bit forward to then add “So, let me introduce you to my loyal friend Mark Lee. Mark, this is Huang Renjun”

“Just call me Renjun” he said as they laced their hands on a shake. “It’s interesting to meet you, Hyuk has told me about you. Like a lot.” 

Mark side eyed Haechan with curiosity, wondering what had that punk been spilling about him through countless texts and what judgements had Renjun in his mind to judge him in advance, but his friend just replied with a dismissive hand gesture full of naturality.

“Don’t exaggerate it, not that much”

“It’s nice to meet you too, Renjun” said Mark, finally introducing himself to the journalist. He had to admit he appeared reliable. For a moment he forgot that he was part of the pomp and reason to be enveloped in one of his most expensive t-shirts and skinny jeans. And the clothes were not the thing that bothered him, he liked to look good if it were only by the destination of that outfit. “Bet we can get along”.

Donghyuk smiled, pleased, and then clapped his hands once to say “So? Let’s geddit!”

There’s people that opine that the happy and the nurtured have different vibes between each other. In this case, Donghyuk had an energy more likely to be fueled by his willpower, not a deshinibated euphoria. Mark admired that of him, his tenacity was, perhaps, one of his biggest appeals; and yet sometimes he had found himself clashing with that unyielding mentality. 

They both had a potent temper with certain things. 

Renjun started walking down the street again, this time with the other two men following him, as they set a direct course to somewhere Mark didn’t bother to remember the name or direction to. 

The stars couldn’t be seen above his head, for the strident light of theaters, shows and cinemas all around them as they passed through them. All that Mark could look at was the smudged splash of neon colors shining in front of his eyes, reflecting on the surface of his pupils, and pulling him into a temporal state of stuntmen, fond of the cold air of the night that made his lungs feel alive and his blood rush faster. He let his mind sleep away as he enjoyed the certain appeal of a new city drowning in the hasty night.

Maybe Donghyuk wasn’t so wrong about partying, breathing and living. Sometimes, Mark was too laid back and he had to be reminded that the rushes of adrenaline he liked were outside the four walls of his house.

He understood, then, what was the difference in the ambience that Renjun had noted some earlier, and that he felt somehow permeating through his pores. 

New York wasn’t for moonbeams, it was cracking roads under thick air, drenched with the promise of fame, fortune and maybe rain. People were alive, their happiness was as unstable as strong, and everyone ignored genuinely the ticking time before it plunged down. 

Mark included. 

By the time the youngest of them announced they were almost arriving, nighttime had twisted back around, and the group walked under the shining lights and neons of Chinatown in the growing night, arriving at the front door of a local that, obviously, was totally new for Mark. 

In fact, the only one to know anything about this was Renjun, who spoke soon enough.

“I believe you two are going to like this place, it’s an elegant cocktail lounge, and the music is cool” he commented, while darkness expanded at night, bringing some base for the true nature of man to be pulled to the front. 

The front building of the lounge was appealing, aesthetically, the geometric order framing the entrance that was highlighted by a neon sign that read “ _ King of Hearts _ ”

“It better be” cooed Donghyuk with anticipation pooling in his voice, and making a dramatic gesture, he added, “You ready, Markeolie?”

He rolled his eyes with a smile and followed them in. 

The first taste of it was like the spoonful of bitter medicine your mother forces you to have as a child. 

It was very dark inside, the ambience covered in a thin nebline caused by the many people that decided to light up whatever they were smoking, and it was noisy enough for Mark to scrunch his nose and send a glance to Donghyuk that was all about “ _ don’t do anything stupid, as you usually do in this places _ ”. 

Mark didn’t have anything against clubs, discos and parties of that sort, but attending them with Hyuk added risk to the equation everytime, because he tended to lose himself in excitement. It didn’t have to mean it was the alcohol making him silly, it was just everything in the air that kicked in his friend’s already hectic veins. It didn’t fit well with Mark’s mood, nor attitude, to deal with the problems that flowed once they were put in a breeding ground. 

The tinkle of glass on glass as people stirred their cocktail was loud, but not enough to be the protagonist over the music blasting with some upbeat rhythm while people danced all carried away, bodies sweaty on a crowd, pressing together, bumping over each other as the rest of people that were too shy to dance entertained looking at them go insane.

Mark was feeling how the temperature rose out of a sudden once the night became a deeper world of allure. 

They were in the midst of some debate about nonsense and what a born chinese author should be writing about in their blog nowadays to become a revolutionary, inventive man; but Renjun had started to appear tedious as heck for Mark, and the man soon abandoned himself to the rhythm and the collective move of people in the dancefloor. 

His momentary carelessness had dragged both the other boys to follow him there and vibe with it, eventually sending Hyuk to get closer to him with an unrestrained smile and the neon lights of the club glowing on his skin, with electric blue that then changed to a strident green or a hot pink. Renjun was close too, there was no way the three of them weren’t glued together, considering the wall of people that the place had become as the night deepened more and more people kept arriving to lose themselves into that cloud of sticky exuberance. 

Even the floor vibrated under their feet with the bassline of the music, but it filtered through Mark’s skin and made him start feeling the kind of freedom a person usually looks for when they go into a club instead of the coldness of an open night. 

No one would have said it was raining outside, because the heat was adhering to his skin as if it wouldn’t ever leave, the only relief against it was the dry-ice smoke that brushed over him from time to time, but he continued to dance and spin under the twinkling lights.

From the spot where Mark was in, his body moving with the flow and trying not to let his glass slip from his hand at the same time, his eyes naturally deviated to the side, checking the people that danced not many meters away from under the DJ where they had the luck -or disgrace, depending on how the night was analyzed with perspective- to occupy through the night. 

The vision hit him like a bullet. 

It was a second suspended in the air of the club, the moment he needed to catch a breath, interrupting the sound of people singing and making-out to the beat of the song he hadn’t recalled the name yet, taking Mark’s attention towards the person that was crossing the crowd. 

Every club that wants to be successful needs a key to achieve it, either it could be a brilliant DJ, a magic recipe of dry martinis or any other magnetic propaganda for the deluded. 

In this case, from the shirt that cinched to his body when it tucked on his pants, to the way he used to recline over a wall as he had a couple of words with whoever he wanted, it seemed that the person Mark was looking at was the only reason. 

Wong Yukhei. 

Mark knew him, and on the papers, it could be said that he had known him for years; but he didn't expect to cross ways with him like that. 

He stared, oh yes, he did. It could be another antropologic question to ask why. Maybe he simply did and all of it was a vicious coincidence. 

Nonetheless, as Yukhei’s face turned to look upon the crowd, scanning it as if everything was his, the architect understood that all the decorations that were shining in that bar couldn’t be an idea of another person that wasn’t Yukhei. 

Just like the  _ King of Hearts _ , he had always possessed an easy magnetism, even when they were in high-school and Mark, although witty and at times sceptical, was no one to oppose it. He had passed through the loop armed only with his cold pretending of believing in himself just as much. 

Which he didn’t.

They had been in the same class during the senior years of highschool, and they had also coincided a couple of summers in Korea during the first years of college.

Besides his charisma with professors and employers, Mark could agree that the man in question had always been quite attention-calling for women due to his looks, sometimes even a little bit intimidating. 

More than a heartbreaker, he was a heart-stealer. 

But beyond that, Yukhei was stubborn and steady. He had great ideas and not a lot of shame to bring them to live. He talked about his projects as if all the lightbulbs in the world had been lit up at once, and the walls had been painted gold to reflect all the luminosity, all the splendor right into his life. He could sell ice in the Arctic Circle. 

Born entrepreneur, one could say. Promising in all the ways the world could mean, because not only was he a brilliant piece of mind with thousands of occurrences, but his parents also owned the money that pulls strings behind the scenes to actually make you relevant. 

Smart, rich, and one final key. 

Fun. 

Fun is everything sometimes. 

It was easy to smile, and easier to fall for the charisma of someone who didn't seem to miss a key of humor, nor a bit of the plans that lead someone to success, regardless of whether he could make it look like he was a dumbass that didn't think too much of his goals. 

That was so far to be true. 

Maybe Mark wasn't being the most coherent human being that night, who is when you are several glasses of booze into the night, tired and with thousand of untouched dreams spending your first night in a new city? He couldn't be blamed for his certitude about the sheer necessity of talking to Yukhei right away. 

That's what Donghyuk wanted, the reason that had made Mark agree with him about going out.

An investor. 

And Yukhei had the word ‘chance’ painted on his forehead. 

Perhaps Mark’s eyes were just dollar symbols as he looked at the man greet some woman in a nice, tidy dress; but that's what he saw in him. 

Young, rich, with initiative and some sprinkles of familiarity to push the line of favoritism and nepotism in his favour. The ‘oh, but we are  _ friends’  _ excuse works quite well for some chairmen, that's a known fact. Besides, it's fairly less awkward to try to convince a man you know to trust you enough to give you money for a project than just talking sweet to a stranger. 

The two boys had been friends and had an amicable relationship. They weren't blood-brothers, but there was a small thread to pull from. 

Mark took the initiative in a split second, and without chewing, he gobbled it down.

"I need to do something, I'll be right back" he told Donghyuk, who somehow understood him in the middle of the hustle and the drunken euphoria and looked at him astonished. 

"Where are you going?"

"Just wait here"

"Yah, Mark!" 

"Let him move" butted in Renjun, holding the other boy by the elbow and pushing back towards himself with a dumb smile due to the effect of the drinks. “Don't stick to his butt all day long, he'll be fine”

“He it’s new in here”

“So are you, no matter how informed you are, you stay around with me”

“Renjun”

“Let him”

The rest of that conversation wasn’t on him, and he didn’t hear because as he let them behind, the loud music covered their voices as if they had never existed. 

Mark tried to walk through the mass of people filling the dance floor, moving towards the outside rim of the club, following nothing more than the shadow of a tall man in a suit until he was alone in the dark, and the loud cheering was unable to hide his palpable silence.

Well, the architect couldn't really feel bad about the impulse of catching Yukhei leaving Donghyuk and Renjun behind, because it was his friend who insisted on going out, at least he should let him get soaked of the night and its opportunities. 

It was marketing to know what the worldview was there, you have to know the target public if you want to succeed, that’s how it worked. And Mark knew that if someone knew how to sell a dream, that was Wong Yukhei. 

But what if he found him? He doubted it for a second. Why would happen once that he and Mark were face to face? Would Yukhei remember him or he would just close the door on his face and laugh while he counts his money? It had been ages since they saw each other the last time, but Yukhei still had the 'business man' look painted across his face. In fact, more than any other time. 

He needed to try his luck. 

He  _ needed  _ his help.

"Hey, where do you think you are going?" Asked a man, in english, as he came to meet Mark and block his way forward. 

Mark stopped on his tracks, as he almost bumped onto his chest, and took a look around, noticing he had moved towards a more empty space of the club, where the darkness was deeper. It wasn't flashy, just another hallway hidden in the guts of a club in Chinatown. At first, he thought it was an area that led to the restrooms, but the doors looked absolutely locked, as if they were the entrance to exclusive and private reserved zones, for employees, maybe for high-income customers. There were some stairs pulled to the side as well, which seemed to lead to an even darker pit, illuminated with red and violet neons in the distance.

It was a strange configuration for a club, but why would he be surprised if Yukhei hung out in the most unique places of the city. 

The person in front him had long brunette hair styled back with a wet look. He was handsome, wearing a black shirt and black skinny jeans, but his look was kind of boyish. Notwithstanding that, his tone was aggressive, and so were his eyes, looking harshly at him. 

"I was… looking for someone" 

"Not here. Turn around and go"

The answer didn't sit right with Mark, whose eyebrows knitted together. "Bro, what do you mean? I can go wherever I want, the door was open, who are you to tell me where to go?" 

"I don’t care if the door was open, it wasn’t an invitation. This is a restricted area, you can't pass. I am overlooking it because you are drunk, okay? Now you gotta go and we’ll forget about it"

"I'm not drunk" assured Mark, a bit too ahead of his words. He was  _ at least _ tipsy, but he wouldn't be giving the satisfaction of recognizing that in front of the rude motherfucker in front of him. "Move, you are getting in my way" 

"Excuse me? Are you fucking dumb?"

"Yo, Guanheng" interrupted the low husky voice of that one that he was looking for. 

The so-called Guanheng turned to Yukhei, and so did Mark, as he came down from the flight of stairs.

They both started arguing in a language that Mark was almost sure to identify as chinese, but he wasn't catching anything, not a single word. Maybe Cantonese. With the loud music blaring at the dancefloor he had left behind by accident and his state of mind, he wasn’t that sure of it. 

Both Yukhei and the other boy went in and out for a couple of minutes, sounding stern and stubborn at each other for a fact. Mark stared, with his mouth closed and his eyes shiny as Yukhei seemed the less unyielding of the parties, just as he remembered he was, until they concluded with the brunette haired boy shutting up and moving back again to let Mark walk into the dark hall. 

The way he looked at him as he took a step was undecipherable, but Mark didn’t quite care. 

At the other side of the spectrum, however, Yukhei stared at him and gave him a gesture with his head, a smile creeping onto his lips. 

"Mark Lee" 

"Wong Yukhei, it's been ages since the last time"

The taller man had already arrived at the center of the room, where he went in for a friendly hug and a pat on the back for Mark. He could confirm that his grin was still the same magnetic charm that had always been there, even though the light on it was slightly off. He felt something hot in his face. 

"You tell me. What are you doing here? You moved?"

"Yeah, today"

"Whoa" trickled off Yukhei, with the ghost of a smile on his face that was all smart aleck. "And you already came down to see me?" 

Mark laughed with that high pitched cackle of his, scrunching his nose and hitting Yukheis shoulder with an unrestrained punch just like he would with Donghyuk. 

"Yeah, dude, it's such a coincidence that we met like this. I saw you back there and I was so shocked… I had to come and say hello" 

"Is that so? I wonder why"

"'Cuz we have been high-school friends, didn’t we?"

"Is this a drunk exaltation of friendship?" Mocked Yukhei, being clearly amused. He must remember how much of a timorous mouse Mark could get to be if the pressure was enough. 

"It’s not, it's not!" 

By the appearance of the brunette boy that had retired to an empty bar at the side of the private area, he was surprised by the easines in Yukhei’s laugh when he accompanied Mark with funny giggles and scrunching eyes. 

“Ah, it’s not?” he said, pointing at Mark and stirring him to laugh even more. “Okay, I’ll believe you this time, but don’t abuse my kindness”

“When have I done that?”

“Never. I remember you in school, you were way too benevolent for this world. Have you even changed?”

“Dunno”

“I bet you haven’t”

“Who knows. But being considerate isn’t that bad, is it?” he said with a grin, making Lucas shake his head with a chuckle. 

“I guess not” his voice was so cryptic, that Mark wanted to pry more in the topic, but as always, the other man moved more resolutely than any of his motions for him to catch up. “So what? Did you come by yourself tonight?”

“Nah, I came with some friends, they wanted to see the vibe and all of that”

“Wouldn’t they be looking out for you now?”

“They got each other,” he commented lightly. “I think they wouldn’t be so sad about losing my sight for a while, at least not Renjun”

“Heart issues?”

“I met him a couple of hours ago, but I wouldn’t really deny that. Time alone won’t kill them”

“Then let me invite you to a round before you go back to third wheeling or whatever, would you?”

“Hold on, is this place yours?”

“Define mine”

“Yours, dude, as in owning the whole thing. You always went around with all that free state shit”

“Speculate” he corrected, the corner of his lip tugging up. 

“That’s the fancy name, it’s just you knowing what to invest in”

“We all have our ways, don’t we?” he chuckled. “So what do you say? Join me for a round?”

“Yeah, man, sure, let’s geddit” 

Mark assented, and for once in his youthful years of receiving invitations to this or that social meeting, to this and that club for the entertainment of only the old goats that paid for his projects, he did it with a full conviction of what he was doing.

Maybe it was because setting goals is the first step he needed to make his processes spin like an engine, turning the invisible into the visible beyond his planes. That, or the fact that he played the game with much more ease when he wasn’t aware of the mortal risk hiding between the book of rules. 

Ignorance is the medicine for the dumb.

“Let’s geddit”

He followed Yukhei in the darkened space of the private hall as the tallest man moved to one of those very private looking doors, opening one to reveal what looked like a reserved lounge, as Mark had assumed. 

It was a bit pretentious, but that was only a signal of Mark’s intentions to be in the right direction. If he could pay the renting fee of that place, it meant he had his feet in affluent business. 

There were a couple of leather chairs in the center, and a private bar with a red neon glow full of bottles behind the glass doors of a cabinet with the same neon brightness. A low round table of expensive-looking wood adorned the place in between the chairs, and a couple of longer couches filled the rest room, where there was still space to hold a crowded party and dance around, in any case. 

It almost felt odd to stay there alone with Yukhei but he took a seat that the man offered him, and so he ended up occupying the other chair by his side, that in a moment had leaned his chin on his hand and let his gaze land on Mark. 

“Do you mind if I…?” he took out one of those long cigarettes, elegant enough to get Mark to shake his head, frankly puzzled about the scene he was assisting to, like a film. 

“No, go on” 

Yukhei made a sound similar to the clicking of his tongue, resulting in a chuckle of amused dalliance accompanied by the fall of his lashes.It stole a mindless and satisfied beam from Mark, as well.

As the chinese man was fidgeting with a lighter to light up his cigarette, Mark was trying to figure out whether he thought about the whole situation. 

Was he taking a fair advantage out of Yukhei’s position or was he just being cruel and lying about their friendship to get money and fame. But what were deals if not that? Night-birds addicted to the rush of adrenaline being egoistic and stupid. 

“So New York, out of a sudden” said Yukhei as he blew the half transparent cloud into the air. “There must be a reason for you to be so far from home”

“Actually, yes”

“I knew it in my gut” hummed Lucas, showing his white teeth behind his plush lips with a smile of satisfaction. 

Their eyes locked for a brief second of coincidence before Mark could move them somewhere else where he didn’t get all queasy, wobbly like a structure that grounds the foundations in an unstable floor. 

“Bullshit, you didn’t need a lot of guessing, we are always up to something”

“True. You want to tell me about it? I knew you finished your degree, and I’m still a bit loose with the credit card”

Call it business, call it partnership.

“If I’m frank, I have big dreams about getting a big project approved under my name. Something big and flashy that I have been chewing at for a couple of years already, I guess I have never settled for less than glory. I must have been born ambitious”

“I have heard many, many things and projects during all these years from different people, but I’m willing to hear a bit more. I invite you to persuade me with your longings”.

“How much time do you have?”

Yukhei gave him a faint smile, eyes hooked in his own. 

“How much time do you need?”

**III.**

By the end of the night, after downing a glass of rum with Yukhei and some more other cups with Donghyuk and Renjun, both him and his friend had had time to become a little drunk, but who was counting once Yukhei had lifted the spirits of the architect? 

He was suddenly animated, counting it as an aftertaste or even a side effect of inspiration, relief and the fake feeling of moving forwards. 

The comfortable capital cushion gave a whole lot of security to someone who’s starting their business. 

He and Donghyuk were arm in arm once again, wobbling down the lamp-lit alley towards their new house, as Renjun babbled something about knowing they'd like the  _ King of Hearts _ , since it had great reviews in every online portal there was available to give a mark with stars. Lately it had been full every night, and with more and more people visiting, more reviews about the fun that were posted, not caring anymore of how expensive drunks were or who the owner was. 

Something inside Mark had shifted, the movement was barely a change of some milimmiters but it was definitely a difference that was, perhaps, the clue for the beginning of that insane butterfly effect.

He had to fidget a little with the keys to open their front door. 

When the euphoria cooled down, Mark would surely feel ashamed of putting up that spectacle in front of the neighbors that could have possibly noticed that the two new asian boys upstairs were throwing their dignity on the ground at the first night rented there. As for the exact moment of the execution, he simply didn't stop to think about it, he just let Donghyuk wrap his arms around his waist and lean on his back as his weight pushed them both to stumble against the door and trip inside the studio. 

"Sshh" laughed Mark trying to hush the youngest a little as he closed the door and bolted the lock "You are not being serious right now, sir, is this how you attempt to get to sign contracts?" 

Donghyuk presses his palm over Mark's lips in an effective try to shut him up, still giggling, in a cloud of deshinibated emotions. 

Both of them were, for one reason or another, up high.

"It was a welcome party, an introduction, a… why am I giving explanations I don't owe you to you, anyway? You said I had to stop being a workaholic and for a time I do, you are still complaining? What do you want from me?" 

The younger of the pair waited for an answer that came in the form of a raised eyebrow from Mark, incredulous that his friend wanted him to reply while still holding him quiet with a considerable steadiness, body all pressed against him, trapping him against the closed door.

With a slow reaction, the journalist put his hand away from his lips.

"I think it's time to go to bed" he said making Donghyuk give him a deep undecipherable stare topped by a frown "Because I can't stand you any longer"

"You’re a prick" said Donghyuk, comically pretending he was offended one last time, as he pushed the eldest, playfully fighting each other and joking around, until they both felt like letting their bodies rest and plop on the mushy bed that belonged to Donghyuk’s dormitory. “And also drunk so you are even stupider than you are in a daily basis”

Is not like they could sit on a couch like men with dignity, since they still had to carry their new furniture from the store to the fifth freaking floor of that building.

“Look at who’s talking. The drunk, moony journalist that can’t stand on his feet” 

Mark, who didn’t drink that many glasses of whatever compared with his friends back at the  _ King of Hearts _ , laughed about how heavily the latter pulled his arm around his shoulders, with a lethargic feeling to it before his forehead flopped on his shoulder. 

His skin was warm even through the layers of clothes in between them.

“We are going to be big, Mark. You and me"

“I hope so” he replied, wishing that Donghyuk was drunk enough to miss the breathy sound of his answer. 

Then he pushed him away to escape his embrace in a swift movement that threw the youngest back on the bed where he fell back, knocked down and in place to start, right away, a night of sleep. 

"I've got my ways"

**IV.**

The act of putting life back into the attic was challenging. 

The lively emotions of the two korean colleagues battled against the weight of their tables and a few couches that they had to drag freehand for five floors without an elevator. Is not that the furniture would have fitted in one if the old building had counted with one. 

Donghyuk threatened Mark with letting all the weight fall on his chest once, tired of that bullshit of decorating the studio for possible visits, but for pride, he kept pulling. 

And to be honest with himself, Mark would agree with the fact of having somewhere to sit and offer tea to guests, because he hadn't found any chance to keep Yukhei out of his mind.

The fantasy eventually evolved, as the week passed day by day, pulling him to a feeling of emptiness in his chest that he was impulsed to fill, and Mark had the bad feeling of belonging to a different world that Yukhei, almost as if their realms were separated by an invisible soapy layer.

But no, they were under the same gray sky of New York that was letting a thin rain fall on the street during those days. The constraining week days. 

The problem was that no man in his right mind would have gone in front of a personality with his empty hands and expected them to shower him in a stream of smiles and sympathy, so the architect got on his feet and shook the dust of lethargy off him, convinced of who-knows-what activity to tell himself he wasn't a poor wretch of no use. 

Canalizing the impulse would be better to overthink. Putting something on the paper would be more profitable than mourning the state of his free soul and his skepticism. 

In the soft and rainy morning he felt like he should be paving his own way towards the market.

That was what he was aiming for while he ran his hand across every supply on his table and then on his drawer to end registering his shelves. He roamed across the room, trying to find his compass, hoping with all his strength that it didn't get lost when they moved in. 

It wasn't a good moment to lose it, not when talking about the sake of some selfless and inexplicable state of mind. 

He ended at Donghyuk's table, a bit ruffled on the organization, searching for his tool, thinking it may have been misplaced during the unpacking of everything. 

Scattered like little patches of petals during winter, there was a mismatch of papers, drafts of an essay and handwritten letters- who used those anymore?- where he was easily able to distinguish the name of Rejun in a couple of postcards. 

"Mark" called Donghyuk as he came out from his room. On the middle of believing he was being any secretive, the architect felt nervous enough to almost slip over the desk and hit his head with the shelve, but he saved the move. His roommate appeared in the living room just then, eyes scanning him as if wondering if the scathing comment was worthy. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for my compass, I can't find it, do you know where it is?"

"I don't think I have seen it in the boxes I have opened, it must be somewhere in the other packages" he said walking to his desk and picking up the postcards from under a bunch of papers and sticking them into a box. It was fun how he was tidy inside his own entropy but Mark didn't stop at that. "You are going to do work right away?" 

"I think so" he replied, almost as taken by surprise as his friend and, with more certainty, disappointed that Donghyuk was speaking to him with that tone, almost like if it was out of this world for him to be competent. 

"You have something new in your mind? What is it? A hotel? A store?"

"Not really, just that project I was planning"

"The skyscraper?" If he was interested before, the way Mark had carelessly and almost accidentally touched the topic of his big dream in storage, made Donghyuk try to pull him to speak more. “You got back to it? I thought you said it was impossible”

“I said it was unlikely to be sustainable” 

“Same thing”

“Not if there’s money in the equation”

“Hold on, you got a hold of investors for that?”

“I’m trying” he said, keeping information back for himself only just in case he could jinx it by talking too much. “I thought of someone that could help me well, but I still need to see how to tackle it down”

“Really? And you opposed the idea of going out! Look at how good it served you, told you I am always right!”

“I didn’t oppose going out, but you gotta admit that you get wild when we go out, sometimes you get more insufferable than the average, it’s wild. Yesterday neighbors were staring at us, I swear!”

“Screw them! If they are sourpuss is not my fault!”

“Yeah, right…”

"Who is it? Your investor"

"Possible investor"

"Same thing! Who?"

Mark tilted his head, doubting the level of secrecy Yukhei wanted. He had mentioned discretion, but the architect was unsure of how much he wanted. 

For a good measure, he put all of it.

"The chairman of a free state company, you know? Just someone that can pay all of that stuff without going bankruptcy"

"Ah, those old rich men"

He was more than glad that Hyuk left the topic at that point. 

The youngest was satisfied with the explanation and the fact that Mark was back to his big ordeal of building some dramatically big skyscraper for pride reasons or whatever; then he gave him a couple of praises that were meant to make him energetic and encouraged, and drifted to his table, right at the other side of the living room. 

They both decided to place the desks under the windows to save money on the electricity bill, since they could use natural light to see their papers for the most part of the day. In fact, Mark liked zenithal light the best for success, after all, a good part of the architectural process was designing the lighting and making it bathe the interiors. It was an indispensable component to fantasize about form. 

Anyways, they had rented the attic because of that living room, which was wide enough for both to be working and still keep each other separated by a couple of meters. 

The configuration of rooms inside the attic was bizarre and the spacious living room was clearly stealing cubic meters to the dormitories, but with that being said, Mark appreciated the intimacy in his job way more than in his room.

He tended to be always immersed in a bubble of his own, stopped alone with his thoughts 

Yet, that morning there was a difference in the nature of those, and it was problematic. 

The oldest of the friends was feeling strange, hearing a batting sound of his heart beating against his ribs, like the flapping wings of a butterfly going fast, trying to get away from a cat that is trying to hunt it.

He knew that the time was getting closer. 

With a sigh he almost choked out the words. 

"Y-you know what, Hyuk?" he stammered getting up from the chair. The other looked at him concerned, without understanding the sudden turn of his attitude. 

"Hum?"

"I'm going to go out and try to find some store where I can buy a new compass. I mean, it seems like I lost mine and eventually I am going to need one, so there's no point in pussing it for later”

"It's fine, not a big deal"

"Be right back" 

“Do you want me to go with you? If you give me a second…”

“No, really, no. Just stay here and do your…” he moved his hands unsure of how to call it, in the middle of throwing a coat on his shoulders and jumping in his shoes waiting at the door “Your journalist things” 

“It’s an article!” he shouted, as the architect slipped between the open space of the door and closed it again leaving him perplexed. He still had stuff to say, but he mostly yelled at the door. “About big corps and their hidden trash, you fucking dumbass!” 

A compass. 

A simple tool for drawing circles and measuring distances between points, consisting of two arms and a joint. It was a quotidian and not very expensive instrument and yet Mark balanced his lie over it with an impossible exactitude. He wasn’t even sure of why he was being so damn secretive about meeting up with Yukehi, it had no point, he wasn’t more than a boy he used to know back in school. Yet, he felt that his steps were rushed on the wet pavement, under the spraying rain from above. 

Is not that he didn't know where he was going, he perfectly could find the place because Yukhei had sent him his location, is just that the heart witch with whom he approached the bar was held by threads from an inconsistent feeling of need, longing and fascination.

Mark was curious by heart, and he needed to explore. 

And he was convinced- madly convinced- that he would win over all those other offers that Yukhei had been a victim for. He would persuade him until there was no way to say no to him. 

He would do that the same way he did back in high-school. 

No matter how many girls batted their eyes for Yukhei as an incentive, and no matter how they made him laugh. It didn’t matter. Because Mark would tempt him into his world faster. 

Otherwise, it would sting him to the bones. 

**V.**

The cafe where Yukhei was waiting was just a small place, intimate, with a few people waiting in line to be attended by a lady that seemed pretty disinterested about her job, judging by the harmonious unraveling of it, making the old woman at the front of the line to click her nails on the counter, very impatient. 

Mark had the bizarre sensation of stares gluing to his nape more and more as he advanced towards the table at the far end of the establishment, tucked into a corner, to finally sit in front of Yukhei. 

He had to suck in a nervous gasp as he saw the man’s body hugged by a grey designer suit over a white shirt and navy tie. Mark himself was wearing a maroon button-down and black slacks under his new black coat, but he felt a bit underdressed by his side. He had forgotten that Yukhei had all those fine lines in him, but with the luminosity of daylight, he bumped onto it again. 

He had been in a rioting velocity for the past week, since they met in the  _ King of Hearts _ , thinking about what could he make up to sound trustable, and now was the moment of truth.

Stopped in that chair, he felt the accusing glide of a drop of sweat as it rolled on his temple. And yet he didn't back down, that wasn’t in his blood. 

“Hey” saluted Yukhei, voice full of energy and eyes striking right into Mark’s own. “What’s up?”

“Hey, Yukhei, did you wait for me too long?”

“Nope. Did you struggle finding the place?”

“Not really, but it’s a bit… hidden” 

“I appreciate intimacy when I do business” he said with a grin that cooled Mark’s blood by several degrees. “Want a drink?”

“Coffee, maybe” 

“Sure, coming up”

There was a fast exchange of gestures between Yukhei and the woman that stood behind the counter, agreeing to bring out Mark’s drink as soon as she was able to deliver it. 

“Whoa, thanks for that”

“It’s nothing”

“I almost forgot you were so… assertive”

Yukhei laughed low but with his whole chest, as he poured an entire packet of sugar into his beverage. 

“A boss has to learn his ways” he joked. “Now you say, what is that you are going to ask me for? You thought about it well? I gave you time”

Mark took the air in and started to think of the man line like one of those magnates with money that he constantly had to lull into how great his projects were, how much they needed him in the building plans and how well invested their money would be if they used it to pay for his caprices. 

“As I said the last time, it has been a while since I have had this project in mind, ergo, it’s ambitious”

“You have always been for a while too” he said, cheekily, with amusement, driving Mark to the thought of how little he cared about messing his mind up. “Ambitious, I mean”

Was he putting him to the test? Because he would not fall for it. 

He squared his shoulders. “Yeah, I know. I always get what I want”

“Sure. So what is it? You said it was a skyscraper, but there are plenty of those here already”

"Yes, a skyscraper, but one that makes the others be ashamed” he explains, high-handed as a first impression watching the other man’s expression acquire a hint of diversion. “Maybe used for luxury offices or for an apartment complex. Made of steel and steamed glass. It has to be neat with a smooth surface but slightly toned, and the glass of the windows cover the outer walls like a skin so the grayish light reflects on it and looks like a strange mirror to somewhere else" he explained, his words just falling off by inertia as he held Yukhei’s gaze. He was tense, but the courage washed through his body, confidence in his words standing undefeated despite Yukhei’s dark eyes. "A building that is clean enough for this skyline, yet sinuous"

"Why?" He asked, straight up. 

Mark turned at him and gave him a long glance, sounding out what was the pretension of that question. 

"Because that's how Manhattan is. Black shines, curved lines and something unknown. They are going to be bored if I present a marble theater" he answers at the end, just to add a little inaudible whisper to its end "And I will get bored, too"

His laugh was like a happy whip when it erupted out of Yukhei, no matter how out of hecking place it was at that moment. 

Mark looked at him more than thrown off balance for a second, but then he tried to compose himself. 

“That’s a good answer,” said Yukhei, filling up his necessity of validation in a stroke. “But I meant, why do you need me for that? You have always had  _ everything  _ with you. You are an ace, always have been, so why are you telling me this?”

“I-”

“You don’t need an idea. Is it a parcel? A permission? Money?”

“You did research?” said Mark, kind of dry because of the way Yukhei had cut him up to guess exactly what he lacked. His palms were so sweaty as the man stared him down. “No one wants to sign permissions for a young architect in such big projects, no one wants to fund someone without experience on a budget like that. It’s like a snake biting his own tail, no matter how good the idea is”

“Now you are showing your teeth, baby lion” commented the tallest, scrunching his nose in a mischievous sneer. The timbre of his voice makes Mark have a cold chill skidding down his spine, especially when he used that nickname for him pulled out from nowhere. “Old white men are a bummer, aren’t they? They think they own everything, and sometimes it’s true. They hold on permissions like it's their own life and hoard all the goods for them”

“Yeah. I would do anything to keep them off my back and get an approbation for my project to become real”

"Anything?"

"I just want this so bad"

“It’s the only fair thing, with your talent”

“You think so?”

“You know I do” simply answered Yukhei, sipping coffee that was still steaming up from the cup. “I always have admired your talent"

"You have plenty too, don't have anything to envy from me"

"I don't. Just an economist with a hawk eye, you know? It makes me see your potential. So what do we do with that, then? Are you willing to change up the things that stop you?”

“I know you, Yukhei, let’s talk about money. What’s the cost of a one eighty in my professional history?”

“For you? None”

“None?”

“We are friends, aren’t we? That can’t be sold or bought. It’s a favour”

“It can’t be free, you know that more than anyone I know”

“Why not?”

“Nothing is for free in this life” said Mark, with a drop of gloom in his argument, but still looking straight into Yukhei’s eyes. “What about the effort you will do to fix it? Not talking about risking your position with investment in a project that could fail ”

"You never fail"

"I appreciate the blind trust, but that's not true"

“ Affection and business don’t go well in your opinion, I see” said Yukhei, lashes projecting shadows over the sharpness of his cheekbones under the dim lights of the lamps. 

His hand fell on Mark’s own, resting on the table, and sent an odd shock of electricity down his body in the single second that the tiny squeeze on it lasted. 

The second hit of being reunited with him felt more vivid for Mark.

It was surprising because he thought the impact done by the sudden discovery of where Yukhei was, was paying part of the amazement. But, with all, the second time around, he had been reminded of his dark eyes already and it didn't prevent him from chewing the inside of his cheek. 

His voice, his ways, made Mark want it all. 

“Affection for me is hard to handle at times, sometimes I take breaks from it” 

Yukhei took a quick glance sideways, chuckling darkly. “They say don’t shit where you eat, but I pinky promise… there’s no interest in this price with me”

“Let me get it straight, you a re saying that you are willing to sacrifice your company’s benefits for me and my project? ”

"Your biggest project"

"Still"

“My company can deal with it,” he said sternly. “So you decide, Mark. I can get rid of the obstacles. Everyone needs a push to hit the jackpot. What do you say?” 

While he looked at him, holding his gaze, as everyone in the bar looked like they were attentive of them, it was as if his last breath was gone. 

This feeling was so rare for him, stretching out to fill his whole chest. It was an injection of illusion and, simultaneously, seemed to be a temerity. Because it was, it was a risk, and it was strange and frightening how he went from not knowing about someone’s existence anymore to then being completely sure of him.

“Go for it” 

**VI.**

"Mark" called Donghyuk, barely in a whisper from the other side of the living room. 

He was seated on his desk while the older of the pair distractedly scrolled through his phone, watching nothing in particular. He was low on gas, and he had been for the past weeks, thinking about a possible way for his life to work out, overthinking way too much about the tragic outcome that his efforts had taken over the years. 

All at once, he felt appalled, an overtone of disgust finding a home at the very back of his tongue, for he conveyed the thought of a wasted youth. Fast, swift, like the pace of the city, his previous fixation towards aiming high started fading off to get replaced by another the less exciting idea of finding himself a simple job in a cafe or a convenience store. 

"Yeah?"

"What was the name of that old man that opposed your building plans when you got the empty construction site, the permission and so on?" 

"What? Neil Cox, why does that even matter now? He crushed my opportunity bribing the fucking major, he can rot in his empire"

"Yeah, exactly that. He has gone missing" announced the journalist, turning around in his chair and leaning on the back to look at Mark, whose activity had been totally stopped to return the gaze, his eyes wider than usual.

“What was that now?”

"His family reported it to the police three days ago, he has been gone for four days already, and they have been investigating it, but they described the case as unusual, they are thinking about giving the case to major crimes and are currently suspecting a planned assault. Someone forced the door of his office, but they don't have more clues" 

"That's impossible, that man works in a hotel franchise, that's why he didn’t want me building one complex near his main moneymaker's site. His office must be in a huge building with security and cameras everywhere, he is like Uncle Scrooge or some shit."

“How do you know that?”

“Uh? How could I not know that? I just said it, that man paid a stack of money to the mayor so they would cancel my permissions to build my project, even though he owns like eighty hotels all across the city. A man with that much money can’t be working in an average cubicle”

Donghyuk pursed his lips. He gave Mark an indecipherable sideways look that he couldn’t comprehend completely. He knew, with all, that he didn’t like it a bit. 

“What’s that face about?”

“The police chief is suspecting of a deliberate murder”

“Donghyuk” Mark vomited the name with surprise and a bitter realization about the direction of their conversation. “Are you implying I am a suspect?”

“Where did you go last week when you got the rejection? You went out for a while, in the night” 

“Are you fucking kiddin’ me, Donghyuk? Because it's not funny” said the eldest one, so caustically it grazed rudeness, taking a glimpse of his face in front of him. 

Upon the abundant sounds of excited hollering outside and the traffic running loudly in the road under the building, Mark could hear the sharp edge of his heartbeat pounding with rancor. 

“You didn’t answer, tho”

Mark stared incredulously at his friend. He was on the brink of staggerment, disbelieving that he heard the very same Lee Donghyuk trailing every word of that phrase. To him.

“Because I can’t believe you are asking me for an alibi!” 

"I'm doing it before someone else does, because if I, a rookie journalist, could trace the way back to you then imagine the police of New-fucking-York"

“Oh, yeah, excuse me, I forgot it was for my good" he spat, quite loud and with thick sarcasm. "I went out to meet my sponsor for an emergency meeting, as someone with common sense does when his job license is declined, what the fuck!?”

That was true. 

Days ago, the certificate letter from the city council arrived in their mailbox, announcing that Mark had to drop everything he was planning for the smallholding that Yukhei had very promptly and nicely provided him with. It had been impressive, so much that he had forgotten to ask the man how he got all the regularized documentation so fast and flawlessly. Mark was still on the high of emotion from having a place and permission that he could barely believe to have gotten when he fell from the nine cloud he was at.

It was a quarter to midnight -because the man always requested him in late hours- when he entered the foggy interior of the  _ King of Hearts _ for the second time in a month and roamed across the place to find the empty table where Yukhei had setted a date with him. Such thing was harder and harder to do as the days passed by and the young people of New York gained the knowledge about the existence of the glamorous, hottest club of Chinatown. Mark would have preferred to sit in a cafe like the one he had visited with Yukhei when they agreed to collaborate in the first place, hear him talk clearer and see him in the light of day for a guilty delight of his senses, but he could  count himself lucky if he could go and sit in a chair with a table and drink something strong enough to make him scrunch his nose and cough with the first sip. 

They had business talks, consisting on Mark explaining the problems and downsides and Yukhei sparking some hope over his views. 

The younger one didn't understand where all of Yukhei’s optimism and self-confidence came from, but he wanted to snatch a little bit of it for himself. 

When he opened the door of the club again to exit, it was a lot later than he would have believed from himself if someone else told him about it some months before. 

The time spent with Yukhei was swifter than it seemed, it flew with an incongruous speed and made the night get deeper into a void. 

Sensations like that should have thrown a little light over Mark’s considerations and settled goals, at least slightly, but he only heard the music of Yukhei’s tone when he gave him uplifting words of hope and compliments about his skills. 

“What do you want me to do? It sounds awful” 

“You think I could kill a man for money? How do you want me not to be offended? You are calling me a murderer, you are supposed to be my best friend!”

“I am, but you have been acting really weird! Being so quiet and low, going out secretively, all by yourself… and the man who screwed you is supposed to be dead now, so it sounded terrible!”

“What would I even get from that!?” blurted out Mark, growing in indignation as Donghyuk didn’t seem to leave the topic alone. His very own friend accusing him of something as bad as that. “Getting him out of the map wouldn’t give me a permission”

“Yeah, I supposed you would said that”

“Excuse me?”

Donghyuk turned around on his table, and moved stacks of papers, folders and so on; looking for something that finally fell on the coffee table in front of Mark when the youngest got up from his desk. 

“This arrived today” 

Mark knitted his eyebrows, wlist his friend seemed like all he could do was avert his gaze from him, looking through the window instead. 

With more than just a few reasons to be reluctant, the man picked up the big envelope of toned paper and ripped the flap open to extract the bunch of papers perfectly ordered with a clip holding them together. His eyes didn't need to spend a lot of time exploring the content, since the first line of written text were plenty explanatory by themselves. 

It was an accepted building permission to his name. 

_ Anything? _

He heard the question in his brain with a clear voice that made his hands shake, but a piece of him didn't want to grasp the realization. More like he couldn't grasp it, actually. 

There was a blinding force of stupid trust within him. 

"I don't know what this is, I don't know how it got here"

"You don't?" Coaxed Donghyuk, not looking at him straight, as if the world outside was keeping part of his mindspace before he snapped. "You're too naïve, then"

"You are still accusing me? I would never do such a thing to build a hotel! It's vile!"

"Not for just a hotel, but for a dream? I have seen you bite people down, come hell or high water, I have seen you travel miles to chase new chances!" 

"You were the one that convinced me to come here instead of going back to Seoul!" 

"Because I trusted you!" 

"Then why don't you do it anymore!? My hands are clean, Donghyuk, stop making up so much nonsense"

"Your hands?" The younger one chuckled, sound so bitter it sounded just as if venom was being poured right over his words. "Maybe. Maybe your hands don't have blood on them… but your sponsor?"

That time the sentence seemed to hit a nerve on Mark. He looked up front, voice more convinced as he pulled up from the couch. The impulse of denial was such, that the stumble provoked the eldest to bump against the coffee table, knocking down his mug, that shattered on the floor with an ominous crashing sound. 

They stared at the pieces for some seconds, as if they were portraying something they both should realize. 

He returned his gaze to Donghyuk again, shadows casting over his pupils like clouds. 

"What about him?"

"Don't act like you don't know"

"And what do  _ you _ know?"

"I am a journalist, I know how to do my research"

"Have you been lurking in my things?!" 

"And what if I have!?" Retorted Donghyuk. "Is not like you can tell when you are running to the open arms of the devil, it comes obvious. Now what are you going to say? Is that you are naïve to the bone or just someone that allows shit to be done in his name?"

Mark looked at him in complete silence, watching, as the leftovers of his coffee ran through the pieces of his mug that had shattered on the floor and were now sinking through the joints of the wooden floor carelessly, with no one paying attention to the damage. 

Even when Mark’s eyes became cold and harsh, Donghyuk didn't flinch.

“He is a friend of mine”

“With friends like those, who needs enemies? Or is just that he doesn’t harm you because you are his little pet?”

“Shut up, you don’t know Yukhei” 

There it was. It was his name said with his tone, and the way it sounded, completely taking the accusations of his friend to heart. It made Donghyuk stare even more, boring a whole in his forehead. 

The right words weren't on that track, Mark knew as soon as it showed up clearly on the way Donghyuk was holding his glance. The truth was hung in the middle of them, equidistant to their opinions while he refused to accept that there was something more than pesky on a man that promises to get you the moon without consequences, that always wants to meet when the stars are up in the sky and which perfume carries a note of ash and iron. 

“I know what I should know” replied the youngest, looking him dead in the eye. “I know what I read in the police reports I have for my article, I know enough to keep myself away from him. With all the close you are to him, do you? Or you just chose not to?”

Far from being absent minded, Mark’s breath hitched momentaneously as if it had tripped while hearing those words said out loud, but he got a grasp of it before the younger could notice.  He tried to be -to look- indifferent, pretending that something like that would protect him from the truth. From the suspicions and doubts that were rising in his mind while Donghyuk kept talking. 

He had been lost in Yukhei’s charm, in the masculine fragrance adhering to his jacket the entire time they had been together. A daydream so appealing that blinded everything else, as it had always been. 

_ Anything? The choice it’s on you, Mark.  _

“I’m not taking more of your bullshit”

“Leave, then, because I’m not stepping outside of  _ my _ house until you know the point”

Mark’s chin was too high. “Fine, I don’t need compassion from someone that doesn’t trust me” 

"So what are you gonna do? Run to him anyways?" 

He knew the way out, he told himself he was old enough to find the door himself and go away from somewhere he didn't belong to without having to answer anything else.

The walls of the house had turned acid to his eyes, the shapes hardened as he walked out like an uncomfortable cage. He was thinking that maybe he had been too subjective judging it when he came in the first time. 

His heart was clenching, constricted and wanting to burst letting all his anger and confusion fall in the shape of tears, but he was too proud of a man to allow himself to cry. 

As soon as he breathed the cold air of the outside world his mind had filled with Yukhei. 

Even more. 

He knew, his mind awakened with the gelid touch of the air outside, recalling how his friend. He needed answers so the questions would stop making his head hurt and his feet run through the city straight to Chinatown. 

He needed that, he needed his trust back, needed to take all out of his chest he needed…  _ him _ . 

**VII.**

Always that strange magnetism that tugged from him like an invisible string, in the same directions as much as he tried not to. 

Mark had learned the route to the  _ King of Hearts _ by memory by the moment he almost crushed himself against the door, pushing it open and entering in the club with a groundbreaking decision.

Despite the stablishment being closed, the front wasn't locked, maybe because people knew well enough to not play around there without permission.

The inside of the club wasn’t as flashy in the light of day, the afternoon still going on outside. All the neon colors that usually threw glows over half-naked, ecstatic people dancing on the dance floor were off, and the same happened with the pair of bars that went alongside the lateral walls of the club, switched off in the darkness without any sign of bartenders behind the counters to pass him a glass full of ice and alcohol.

However, the place wasn’t entirely empty or quiet. 

The couple of men that were sitting around one of the tables available stared at him and stood up as soon as he stumbled inside, denoting with perfect clarity that he was an outsider.

Not for fear, but rather out of affliction, Mark gulped. 

He could see the stacks of green that piled on the table with the chip and cards. There was no way that guys as young as them, that should be around his age- would be putting all that quantity on the stakes with that lack of care if something bad wasn’t going on.

He recognized Guanheng from the first time he visited the club, but not the other man, shorter and with pale blonde hair, who stared at him as acrid as his colleague had done when they bumped into each other the first time.

That could be the hint that told him he was being very inconvenient with the timing, but he also read between the lines and noticed that it was more than that. 

He didn’t care whatsoever, he had no time to spare being intimidated by some randoms. 

“Where is Yukhei?”

"You are stubborn, aren't 'ya, Mark Lee?" said Guanheng, as if he had known his name and personality for the longest time and had the right to address him like so. As if he was Yukhei himself and not just one of the associates that flew around him like moths attracted to the light. 

The smirk on the man’s lips was what Mark hated the most out of everything he had done under the minute he had been there, making his blood boil even more. 

“It’s none of your business. Where is Yukhei? We need to talk”

“You can’t solicit him just like that”

“Oh no? Is he the fucking  _ King _ ?" he spat, dry and sour, eliciting dark glances from the other two. “Can’t his majesty be bothered to come down and talk to me face to face? Is he hiding something, perhaps?”

It had possibly been a risky movement on his side of the board to talk like that, since the blonde man whipped out a gun from the back of his jeans in response to it, pointing the cannon at Mark with a wrecking decision. Still it wasn't fear what spreaded on his chest, but his soul… his soul plunged down to his feet and broke in thousands of pieces.

Fucking liar. 

His aspect was like those of venomous animals, so flashy and beautiful to attract the prey and kill them in his embrace; his voice so sweet like honey to make Mark stick by him, his eyes dark enough to make his curiosity burst and get lost in a maze of cravings. 

He had forgotten… that that was Wong Yukhei. More than a heartbreaker, a heart-stealer. 

“No, he can’t, next question” blurted out the blonde.

Guanheng rolled his eyes by his side, visibly annoyed with the whole ordeal. “Dejun, don’t play cocky now. Put down the gun”

“He is sticking his nose where he shouldn’t, in our business”

“Excuse me the fuck, but this is precisely my business. My business with Yukhei, so you are the one sticking your nose where you shouldn't. Now if you don’t mind, you can keep playing poker and shut up, I am taking the luxury of talking to him myself”

"The fuck!?"

He heard the rustle of a discussion in chinese kicking off once more as he turned to the door of the hallway where he had found Yukhei the first night, knowing that it was up there where all the secret doors were. If he had to go one by one interrupting all of the members of that cursed mob, he will, but he will find Yukhei and put things on the table. 

“Stop right fucking now!” yelled Guanheng, chasing after him with the blonde man on his trail. 

He reached out and grabbed Mark’s coat, but he yanked himself forward and out of his hold with strength. 

“Don’t touch me, you piece of filth!”

Even though he had never heard something like it in real life, Mark could recognize the sound that came from Dejun to be the safety of his gun being taken.

“Dejun!” blared Guanheng, sounding just as upset as he was with Mark. “He is on the White List!”

Mark kept moving forward whatsoever, almost bumping into a door that opened with a harsh smash, revealing a younger boy with purplish hair behind it as he came out to try and keep up with the other two. 

“What’s all this noise about?”

As he asked, Mark sneaked around the corner and ran up the stairs jumping two steps at a time. 

"Get a hold of him, Yangyang!"

"What even is going on?"

"Let him go" spat Dejun. "He is a dead man when he goes up there anyways, it’s on him"

He was acting reckless, he could tell that much, but just very deep down in his stomach. 

The rest of it was mindless impulse. 

The sound of his footsteps on the carpet of the upper floor sounded distant and hostile at the same time, as Mark contemplated the door the end of the hallway. 

The few meters that separated him from it was the result of a long time of studying, from elementary school to high school, his trip to France and the not-so-easy scholarship to enter the Architecture Academy. The years of planning what to do and how to layer the bases while his parents insisted a million times that he should head back to his motherland and contribute with the landscape there and not somewhere abroad. They gave him a headache, sometimes made him feel insecure of his own potential and, added to the endless obstacles of the market, in the worst cases, almost convinced that he wasn't enough to be playing on a big stage. 

Maybe he did it just out of mad bullheadedness and he was meant to sink, after all, but he was there and he had his plans, his methods.

They all had been shifted in a beat, thought. 

He couldn’t let Yukhei run away with that. 

Not so easily. 

He bursted through the door as if he was about to break havoc, finding himself into a wide office -studio, maybe was a more fitting word- with no windows. The walls were covered with a fancy looking wood and a splendid myriad of paintings. The floor flaunted a big carpet, the sofas were wrapped on black leather, just like the chair that was pulled behind a mahogany desk with a polished computer of the best brand on top. 

In some part, Mark wasn't ready to face him and make all the situation work, he didn’t even know what he wanted to say to Yukhei, after all, but he knew there was no other way to clear his mind, nor a magic formula to rip all knowledge from his brain. 

His stomach flipped just as he saw him get up from the chair with a knowing sneer, as if he had been waiting for that moment.

His rage whipped him raw.

“ You fucking bastard” he said under his breath, only making Yukhei spread his smile even more. 

“Mark, welcome. Come in” he said, ironically. “Something you want to talk about?”

“You fucking bastard lied to me!” He repeated, now yelling to the top of his lungs. “How dare you tell all those lies straight to my face!?”

“Calm down, baby Lion” he said with a dark chuckle, dodging the hit that was supposed to come from Mark with an easy movement.

His words, however, seemed to fuel the man with more determination, growing frustrated as he chased after Yukhei across the room, grabbing a handful of the tallest man’s collar and tugging hard. 

“Don’t tell me to calm down, I have all the rights to curse you”

"I didn't lie"

"Concealing the truth and painting me to be a lamb that follows you all obediently it'sas bad or worse. Well, fuck you, man, I'm none of that"

“You are cute when you get mad” 

The mockery got him even more, setting him off and making his nerves curl. 

The careless humour of the chinese man put in the harsh context that his real world involved was much more infuriating than it used to seem from Mark's point of view. His big and dark brown eyes were no longer vivid but dangerous and sharp when Mark stared at them feeling the heat rise to his brain and dazzled him. 

“I am not joking here, Yukhei, I am raging furious, don’t you get it? Police could lap on me just because of your tricks, they could make me go under”

Yukhei’s eyes turned half closed, staring at Mark as if he had finally stricken a chord. But not the right one. “I would never let anyone lay a hand on you” 

He paused for a moment to watch the tallest man, whose words had sounded pretty serious if still unbelievable for him. 

“What are you even talking about?” scowled Mark, finally releasing his grip on Yukhei’s shirt, sending him in an almost imperceptible tumble. 

It was so frustrating for the youngest, out of a sudden. To know that anything he did wouldn’t provoke more than a simple change on the angle of luminosity that fell over the man’s eyelashes. He could yell, frown, throw a tantrum, break the expensive items that were laid on his office and still all that he would get from Yukhei would be a scoff and some words trying to stop him, almost lazy, as if he wasn’t more than an annoying kid that has gone out from their parent’s hold and is trying to run freely down the street. 

He wanted to do  _ something  _ on him, just anything. 

"I mean it dang seriously"

“What does that even mean? If they came for me, you would bribe them? Threaten them? Would you fire a gun against them?”

“You seem upset that I would protect you”

“Don’t twist my words!” seethed Mark. “I didn’t ask you to protect me, anyways. I only needed a favour”

“And I helped you with it”

“Man! At what price!?"

"At the price something like that costs! What did you think that would happen? That suddenly everyone turns sweethearts that agree with you? What are you so mad about?"

"What? What am I mad about? Yukhei, be honest, your 'economies company' is nothing but the cover of a criminal gang!" 

“You say so because?”

“C'mon, look at me in the fucking eye and tell me you did not theaten that man’s life to get my permission accepted”

"How you know about that?"

"So you did it! For a bunch of papers, Yukhei!"

“Is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Not like this! Not joining a mob!”

"I mean, if you stop to think about it, every powerful company nowadays has let blood run. Any other would have done the same, at least I go from the front" 

"Okay, fuck it, you know what? I don’t want anything to do with your business anymore”

“You don’t?” asked Yukhei, leaning back on his desk gracefully. 

He was wearing the black slacks of a suit, but there was no blazer whatsoever, only a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the neck falling down too deep for Mark not to stare at the obvious plane of smooth skin underneath.

"No. I quit"

“Yeah? Let’s recall the events then. You were the one who requested me to help, and you were the one that knowing what goes on under the surface of this club bargained in my headquarters and ran straight to me, anyways. Doesn’t seem like you are in the right way to detach yourself from me”

Mark scoffed harder than ever. 

"The audacity" he mumbled, under his breath. "I came here to cut this out" 

"You could have texted, if that was the case" 

Mark shortened the distance between them, willing to spill every word he was about to say as close to Yukhei as possible so he could engravel them in his mind. 

"And miss your face when I tell you this is how far I'm going? Sorry but no, it had to be personally. Breaking your illusion must be so priceless" Under the mask of his carefully controlled expression, Mark could see how Yukhei's jaw clenched when he bit back. "Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about, is that all of your temper kicking in?"

Their eyes were still locked, and suddenly Mark noticed that that was the closest he had ever been to Yukhei, face to face. He saw the way his lips puffed and the lovely dip of his cupid bow, he smelled the intoxicating scent of perfume that drove everyone crazy, lost somewhere between the layers of clothes that covered his velvety skin.

It all made him dart his tongue out and wet his bottom lip to get the dryness away. 

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

Yukhei got rid of his tense face, eyes darkening as his large hands settled on Mark’s hips. 

He wondered if the man was reading the guilty secret he was hiding deep down, as the sparks climbed on his pine and his skin shuddered under the clothes with nothing but a faint touch of Lucas palms. He really asked himself if the subtlety of his thumbs rubbing circles on the small of his back was accidental or wanted to be as enticing as they were, just as much as his tilted sneer, making his lips more attractive even, more kissable.

He noticed, then, that he was staring to his lips and his eyes alternatively; and that Yukhei was probably aware of that. 

“Aren’t we too close now, Mark Lee?” he said, avoiding the question on purpose, so blatantly cocky. The truth is that they were, and the darkness of a studio with no windows only contributed to make it feel more nerve-racking. “Too close, as I said, to believe you want to detach yourself from me”

It was agony. 

His breath collided with the skin on his cheeks, making chills go down his body. 

It was not a secret, but it felt like it.

Mark even liked his raspy tone when he talked in a low voice. That feeling of overflowing energy that he provoked on him, the need to make something that could impress him, turned into raw lust.

Mark counted five seconds.

Five seconds was the time that took him to give up, almost missing the clear chuckle from Yukhei when he tugged his dark hair and pulled his face down to furiously kiss him, tongue slipping between his pink, cushion lips.

The whole trail of hesitation and doubts about him and his legality erased too fast when Lucas' mouth responded roughly against his and Mark became so determined to not be losing a fight for dominance. Or that's the reason he wanted to make up for himself when he threw his free arm around his neck to pull him even closer. 

Yukhei always exceeded at everything Mark looked up to, so as expected, he happened to be a very good kisser. His tongue tasted like a stupid mixture of alcohol and blueberry juice, and made him feel the vivid adrenaline of living fast and being young run through him, back arching on his embrace. 

It became irrelevant what people- what Donghyuk- could possibly say, because the moment was only on Yukhei, in winning over him for once and breaking the ice shield of his always unbothered expression. 

Just something.  _ Anything _ . 

The slight part between them let a breathy sound fly away from Yukhei, so keen that it made Mark explode in a ball of flames and very little coherence. 

“That proves my point” teased the tallest man upon more wet sounds of lips crushing and hectic breathing. "You don't want to run away from me"

“Shut up” hissed Mark way more sternly than what Yukhei expected to hear from the younger, hands fisting the material of his white shirt as if he was about to pull and rip it. 

“Shut  _ me _ up”

It was a cliché of a reply, and a sheer provocation from Yukhei to riddle him up, but little did he care about the dialogue when he felt how the man pushed his coat back and it fell behind him, on the floor. 

“With great pleasure”

“So determined”

Mark asked himself how arrogant could Yukhei get, and how much could he actually get to like said arrogance if he was sliding his hands all over him, trying to test how his body felt on his fingertips. 

"You don't even know"

His lips traced Mark’s throat, rolling down, lingering on the sensitive skin under his jawbone that made him shake against his chest and clump the material of the shoulders of his shirt in his hands. Yukhei took air and then scuked on his neck in a tormenting, paused manner. 

His hair was being softly but firmly pulled to make him tilt his head back and allow more space of bare space to abuse with his teeth and the reassuring brush of his tongue. His t-shirt needed to go, and he knew that, but he couldn’t find a moment to interrupt what Yukhei was doing with him to pull it off, so blinded by the pleasure that he forgot he hated him so dearly just minutes ago. 

Mark could feel how the place the other man was taking care of would become a purple mark later. Immediately he felt like lifting Yukhei’s chin again and threw himself onto his mouth, as if that would make the redness on his skin go away. 

The force made Yukhei bump back onto the edge of the table, holding Mark with open arms, and stroking his body eagerly, as if the rashness of the kiss made him click, fisting the material on the back of his t-shirt to pull him closer. 

Mark's kiss was mad, yearning and sloppy, all tongue and lust, but he noticed how well Yukhei could follow the pace, no matter how fast or hungry he was, he always had the power to ease it with more flame.

You can’t stop a fire with more fire, though, it only makes it bigger. That’s how Yukhei dealt with things and built his empire. 

Mark pulled from the shirt too, hearing how the buttons clicked against the floor as they ripped from the material, making the tallest of the men smirk under Mark’s demanding lips and hands dripping from his neck onto his bare chest. 

Always a want-it-all. 

He had started something that he was unable to stop, and he was noticing it just in that moment. But his lips tugged up in the corners, knowing that for one time, Yukhei was also getting tangled in someone's game. 

His game. 

Tearing the white garment off the way, Mark ran his tongue on one of his nipples, meeting the unexpected cold of a tiny metal piece. He looked down at it for a second, not expecting it to be pierced, but it was not much of a surprise at that point that it was, and it looked… beautiful.  His thumb rubbed gently with an exploratory move of his fingers that Yukhei seemed to allow, keening with a low hum, so the architect inclined back down  and trapped it between his teeth, lapping his tongue on it and tugging until Yukhei groaned louder and his body rolled against him with obvious expectancy. The tallest got his fingers lost in his hair to keep him close as he let him do his thing, playing with the small bar of the piercing and rubbing the other bud with his fingers until they both were hard.

Only when he needed to catch his breath, Mark stepped back a little, but Yukhei moved nearly as fast, tugging from him to make him spin, pushing him down to the desk to make his back rest against the cold wood and the endless papers that were scattered all over the place.

Mark let out a subtle whimper from the rumble of his body hitting the hard surface, but he surprised himself with a rebellious giggle. He was not used to being manhandled, but apparently, his dick did enjoy that and twitched excitedly with Yukhei’s expert motions to pin him down.

The younger one was trapped against the table, watching Yukhei’s luscious lips get bruised because of him, and his chest covered with the faint mark of his bites and the transparent layer of his spit. 

His heart was pounding so hard in his chest that he wouldn't be surprised if Yukhei could hear it and use it against him.

This was not what he was planning at all. Or maybe he did, deep down, knowing that for years he had chased after Wong Yukhei to get the minimum gesture of validation from a man like him. 

Out of admiration, that’s what he had thought to be the reason, but as Mark bit his bottom lip and watched Yukhei moving over him with the same longing eyes of wanton, he mused on the fact of just itching for him all along. 

In his head, he was chanting pleas over and over again, wishing Yukhei would go down to kiss him hard again, but instead, the back of his hand caressed his cheek as if he was nothing but a small pet. 

Slowly, torturously, his hand slid all the way down on his chest and to his stomach, making Mark dizzy with desire. 

An involuntary sound betrayed him as Yukhei put his hand directly on the tight bulge of his pants and squeezed it hard. 

“Are you flushing, Mark?” he sang as he leaned on the table, feeling like a king. Mark pressed his lips forming a thin line, unable to say anything. He didn’t want to be betrayed by the breaking of his voice, but he knew his emotions were easy to read in his face. “ Don’t be. You have done this before, I bet”

“Yeah. Have for sure that you are not my first” he muttered, with his voice audibly strained, but still keen to fight back.

“Not your first, what a pity. But I’m still on time to be your  _ last _ ”

Mark froze on his spot, getting goosebumps when he stated that, but everything was moving fast enough to let him forget about the consequences of aiming as high as to own Wong Yukhei for at least a while. 

He was done thinking for just a little time, and he pulled his hands up, letting Yukhei’s hand travel from his crotch to the edge of his shirt to pull it off. 

With his eyes almost jet black for the intense glance he was goving, he approached, dramatically, but Mark had to admit his theatrical attitude was as elegant as freaking erotic. His hand then, fell on his shoulders and traveled down on his upper body, hot to the touch. 

“You wanted this, don’t you?” whispered Yukhei, almost breathlessly when Mark sat up and joined their exposed plains of skin together, rolling his hips against him, eliciting sparkles unlike anything he had been given in his life. It felt stupidly good, it was so absurd. “I guessed when I saw you in the light of day. You were looking at me with that something that you have always had, yearning eyes. I wondered how long it'd take you to do this”

“I am ambitious” he simply said, burying his face on the crook of Yukhei’s neck to hide the way his eyebrows were forrowing because of the coaxing pleasure of the grinding. 

A muffled moan crushed against Yukhei’s throat as he closed his hand around him again with hooded eyes and stroked Mark through the material of his jeans, earning more of his sounds in return. 

“I know. And so I am” 

The younger one kept his body rolling, leaning back to lean on his palms and allow Yukhei space to palm him, but he guided his hand to his waistband instead. His free hand clasped on Mark’s shoulder, slamming him back on the wooden table again, but he let it happen because he was aching for his erection to be freed.

With haste, his own fingers began to fight the buckle of his belt, but Yukhei seemed to be in a frenzy mood, as well, so his long fingers quickly unclasped it. The whip of the leather in the air sent another blissful twitch to his navel as Yukhei got rid of his pants with a hard tug and ran the palm of his hands to his hips, holding him down. 

Mark instinctively pressed his knees, trying to keep it together and perhaps conceal the very evident lust that was blinding him, but it had no point. 

Yukhei chuckled. “No way, open your legs”

He trembled a bit, but then played it cool and parted his legs as he was asked. Nonetheless, he was embarrassed to the core, his body shaking and trembling beneath the other man as he pulled his underwear off and his cock sprung free, ears turning bright red knowing he was fully exposed while Yukhei was still unbeaten. 

With the fresh air, his back arched over the bunch of papers on the table. 

He hadn’t stopped to think about it, but of course, he had been satisfyingly hard under the clothes, and with just one glance at the other man, Mark knew perfectly that he was enjoying said view way too much, as well. 

Yukhei stared at him as if he was the most appetising treat to experience, and his burning orbs made heat fill him more and more. 

Mark mewled, riddled with the bliss of his dick laying against his belly and dripping with excitement. 

His vision was blurry with intent, and so he placed his hand around the base and started playing with it, locking his unfocused eyes with Yukhei to make him feel obligated to watch him threaten his sanity. 

“Xuxi…” he had the need of smiling wide at how he pronounced the nickname that made Yukhei humm enthralled. “Hurry up, give me a hand since you are so good at making me favours”

His stomach clenched while he tried to hold himself from emitting more noises, wondering how long he could bear with the scene of self-satisfaction. His thumb caressed the tip and drew circles over it that had him breathless. 

The tallest gave him an open mouthed kiss under his jawline, ending sucking the flesh and making a purplish mark that had him more than content. Forgetting that he was doing it to tease him, Mark’s hand speeded up going up and down his cock that was pulsing hard.

“I knew…” he finally spoke, suddenly in the middle of his troubled respiration. “I knew you were a secret freak”

The grin was inevitable for Mark when he heard how many octaves Yukhei’s tone had gone down, and he reduced the speed of the masturbation session. He didn’t want to end it like that. 

It took him a second to tell himself no to thrust on his hand but quickly his attention deviated towards Yukhei pulling up his face and pressing the tip of his fingers on Mark’s lips, whose almost nonexistent partition gave him a queue to shove them inside his mouth and kick away any possible response from his part. 

Another thrilled mewl left Mark, blood pressure rising fast discovering with the throb of his dick how desperate he was. He tried to get rid of the moans that were fighting to leave him and  sucked on the digits, tongue swirling around them eagerly. 

“That’s the Mark that I had always wanted to know” he chuckled, darkly. Usually, being talked like that by men wasn’t a real turn on for Mark, but that time, he smiled devilishly and licked his fingers from the base to the tip with an expression that only made it look even more obscene that it was. “There you go, like a professional”

Yukhei took his hand away then. He had had enough of the inflammatory view, and they were wet and slick, a coat of saliva on them and over Mark’s lips. 

“All I do I do it g-”

He interrupted himself, since Lucas pushed two of his shiny fingers to his entrance and thrusted them inside his tight walls without much of a warning. He writhed over the table, with a squeal as he went under the stretch out of a sudden, but Lucas used his free hand to hold him down, leaning his weight over Mark as the younger one got lost in the utter burn that was opening him. 

Yukhei curled his fingers, moving in and out with the sole help of his spit to ease the roughness of the stroke, but Mark seemed to enjoy it, with his breath becoming heavy and his ass sucking in the digits. As Yukhei kept pumping in and out, Mark’s cock leaked more on his belly button and torso, and the man revolved on the table, limited by Yukhei’s grip on his bicep. 

He didn’t lose no time adding a third one that made Mark sound like he would scream any time soon if they kept it at that pace. 

“You have no idea of how long I have been wanting this” 

Mark only attained a dazed stare at him as his head lolled to the side and his lips parted. 

He sounded so good, and he looked quite hot; his skin had bloomed with a layer of sweat, his lips were swollen and glistening and his pupils, despite being concealed by his half closed eyes, were big and liquidy. 

“Yuk...hei” he choked out, dealing with the effect of the slight pain wearing out and turning into pleasure as Yukhei took his fingers knuckle-deep inside Mark. 

“That’s right, say my name like that”

“I also wanted to,” he confessed in a lowering of his guard. Did that even matter? He may never go out of that room once they were done, so who cared no more about those stupid things. “I had the slips of letting myself think about you like this” 

“You are liking that, don't you?”

Mark nodded, lifting his hips from the table to sink deeper around Yukhei’s fingers but he pulled them out, making him hiss under his breath for the absence of a strain between his walls, clenching around nothing. 

It was a question of a single moment, though, because Yukhei started undoing his pants and kicking them off the way. Mark’s eyes couldn’t be averted from the shape of his shaft marking under his underwear, pulse getting stronger as he remembered that all of that was about to go inside him. 

The tallest grabbed his wrist and pulled him off the table, making him walk across the room with legs so shaky and weak he thought he would fall face down on the floor. Nevertheless, his calves hit the armchair of the sofa and Yukhei pulled him back on the furniture, legs spreading as he placed himself under the older one. 

It was all so fast that he didn’t know when Yukhei tore the last piece of clothes off, only that he looked like all of what Mark wanted to make out of him. An absolute mess, panting and hard, very much affected by his actions in the most perfect way to show it. 

“What are you thinking about?” Mark sighed, raring to get the top notch of the feelings, hand rubbing on his own nipple unwittingly as he watched Yukhei stand on the couch and crawl over him.

“What am I thinking?” he said, licking his lips with a tone of sensual darkness covering his voice. He planted his palms on both sides of his head to lean above him and find the spot next to his ear so he could hear his quiet words. “I am thinking about how nasty we are going to fuck”

“I bet you have imagined this before” he chuckled, teasing him. But as Yukhei gripped his thighs and spread them to move between them, his nails dug on the cushions of the sofa, riddled with anticipation and heat. Was he always like that before? Greedy for Yukhei’s touch and attention and aching for his dick in that manner. “Do it already”

Needless to say, Yukhei wasn't in a situation in which that didn't make him go straight into him without thinking twice. He lined the tip to his entrance and pushed inside him, shutting his eyes and tightening his hand around Mark’s thigh by instinct, nails drawing red lines over his pale skin. 

He gasped, but Mark gasped louder. Yukhei’s dick was large enough to send his body writhing beneath him and lost in waves of pleasure and pain as he put half of it in and then moved back, to thrust in deeper, and then deeper until everything was sucked inside Mark’s snug hole and his hazy head fell on the coach, jaw slack.

The pause that Yukhei gave him was far from being out of courtesy. Is not like he believed in Yukhei having any real sort of kindness left in his heart, he was only a demon in the skin of a man that shot a competitor in cold blood to get a signed paper in his mailbox, but he wasn’t in need of consideration and that was obvious.

“Move or I'm going to go insane” more than an order it sounded like a request. Yukhei giggled, buckling his hips without pulling out. He circled them, round and round, as Mark trembled and his moan came out. “Fuck, Xuxi, move”

His voice cracked.

It was then when Yukhei, amused, thrusted sharply on him to watch that abandonment repeat on Mark, but it seemed to make the older one forget what acting subtly was. 

Mark was so tight and hot around him, clenching with anticipation, that it was asphyxiating. He was leaking and his cock twitching inside him as he moved in and out. Once again. Once again. It had no end for them. 

"You are tight" 

Well, that's what happens when you don't take anything like that in a while. Mark felt the pleasure of being full to the brim, and his mind began becoming numb with the sensation. 

He lost the trace of himself, hand wrapping around his needy shaft to stroke it too.

Yukhei shifted his weight to one knee, moving one foot flat to the floor and using it as support to reach him from another angle that must hit Mark right in the spot because his back arched and his walls closed around him while his lips gave him a handful of choked out curses and groans. 

“You son of a b- Fuck!” his whimpers were becoming cries of sheer bliss. Mark didn't even know what feelings were awakening in him, but it felt like stepping on a hot iron. "Deeper"

"More? You are greedy, uh?"

For the sake of both of them Mark moved his hips up too, meeting the pace and sinking himself even deeper, groaning loud and not being able to keep it on his throat no more.

The consideration for his dignity, his initial goal of quitting Yukhei’s addicting pull from him or the people that were out there waiting for him to be slaughtered in that room, was shattered under the weight of Xuxi pounding on him and sucking the flesh of his neck . 

If that was his last act before being whipped away, he will be okay with the sweet death. 

"Just because you like that" he spurred, not minding anything at all. "You like me, right? You can't help" 

Yukhei thrusted in with a hard edge, hitting just in the right bundle of nerves that had Mark curling under him and drooling as his body spammed on the sofa.

"What do you think? I'm not this merciful with just anyone"

There wasn’t a lot of mercy on the moves of his hips, whatsoever, making Mark claw on the sofa and drag his nails on the leather, staining the furniture with the saliva that trickled down from his lips. 

His eyes were half closed, barely registering anything more than the ceiling at that point. He was so tired, but didn't want the strong vibrations going down his body to end, so he swayed his hips up and down too, as they synchronized on the fast move they had built up together. 

He was about to reach his limit. His whole body tensed like a clear warning on what was next, so Yukhei leaned in closer to him and pulled his hair, making Mark tilt his head up, just in time to trap his lustful moan on a wet kiss, which he returned licking in his mouth.

"I'm-" 

His body fully stopped for a breathless second of mind-numbing rush, spilling his seed over his hip. Yet, the other man didn't stop, riding his high too fast for Mark to react with anything but a lack of oxygen.

He surrounded Yukhei with his arms making the kiss deeper, as his dick continued leaking with every trust; and knowing well that Yukhei's high wasn’t far from happening too, building up in his stomach, coiling inside him and making his cock jerk inside his embrace. 

Mark fell into a blur of raunchy, senseless sounds, that mixed with the sensual noise of his name being called by the older one. 

" _ Mark _ " 

It sounded so good when he said it like that, it was pretty obscene, but it filled him with a sense of victory, especially when he verbalized all of what the architect could swear that was the dictionary of bad words that existed in the cantonese language. He probably wasn't calling him less than a slut, but he did not mind the roughness.

He didn’t. 

He quite liked it, indeed. He wanted more and more; and the squirming beneath him couldn’t stop because Yukhei was still moving and taking him to the edge.

“Are you going to cum?” asked Mark, panting. The chinese man nodded with his head low and a bead of sweat rolling down his temple, pressing his lips hard together. 

"Yes, so close"

The fire ran free in his blood. Mark was convinced of making him remember that fuck for sure, so when he was gone he would regret it to the core of his heart.

“Do it, come on, Xuxi, cum for me”

As soon as he pronounced that sentence, Yukhei groaned, tensing all his marked muscles and running his nails on Mark's thighs at the time he got immersed in the orgasm, pouring fiercely inside him, who didn't seem to care about it. 

He could feel the weight of the world falling on him when Yukhei stopped. The realization began sinking in and the emptiness hit him straight on when the tallest man pulled out and the thick white liquid that was filling him streamed down on his thighs, leaving him feeling the coldness of the room. 

Mark didn't move.

His eyes were closed and he stayed still, waiting for his breath to come back to a normal speed or just stop being a coherent cycle as Yukhei blew a whole in his chest and ended him on the black leather of his couch.

Better to go when he still felt full of satisfaction and pride, half-reeling and all sexed out. Many people would prefer that end above a sinister, sterile hospital room.

Passing away there would be much more lavish.

He even thought he would fall asleep nestled on the cushions of the furniture with his clothes lost across the room, each piece at a different location to highlight that Yukhei conquered over him. 

Only when the adrenaline rush finally calmed down in his veins, he decided to open his eyes and stare at the real world out there.

Yukhei was pulling his pants up again and he had a red spot on his bruised lips that made Mark way too satisfied because, after all, marking milestones on Xuxi wasn’t as impossible as he used to believe. 

The man stared back at him, locking their eyes once more, now with the darkness washed-off. 

“You want to nap here? I have to go, I have things to do, but you can stay around for a while if you want”

“Aren’t you going to kill me before you leave?” he inquired, as if it was the more natural thing to ask to someone after sex. 

Yukhei looked at him literally as if that was the most stupid thing ever said in the entire universe. His head tilted to the side, face puzzled, appearing like a big golden retriever that doesn’t mean harm instead of a serial fucking killer. 

“What? No"

"Why?"

"I said I would never let someone lay a hand on you. It includes myself, of course”

“But they said I was a dead man if I came here”

“Tsk” Yukhei scoffed, laughing as he rolled his eyes. “ Guanheng and Dejun? Don’t listen, they snap faster than a rubber band” 

“It’s hard not to listen to those things, Xuxi” he said, finally sitting up and proving that even his lashes were sore after the showdown. But still, he was on again, not wanting to show any of that on the outside. “Let’s be honest here, I lost the trace of you for years and when we meet again everyone around me seems to be aware of how fast you could end me. Guess what? That doesn’t make me feel safe” 

Yukhei’s lips tilted indecipherably. 

"You are scared?"

"You killed a man in cold blood" he pointed out again, not really answering his concrete question because he would never admit to be in a lower spot than Yukhei, for a fact. "I guess you want me to ignore that, but what makes me different from him?"

"Talent, charisma, hard work and a thousand things more that I appreciate"

"How can I trust your word, you are nothing but a liar" 

Yukhei chuckled, sounding venomous.

“Is it about trust?” he asked. His hand reached to a shelf behind him, taking out a black gunshot that landed right at Mark’s bare lap in a second. His eyes widened, looking at the weapon and then going up to Yukhei with alarm.

"What the heck, Xuxi?" 

The tallest dragged the twin of the gun from the same shelf and pointed it at Mark’s chest, making him get goosebumps. 

Slowly, he grabbed the weapon, lifting it up to point at Yukhei too, mimicking the pose like a mirror. 

“It's too late to say you have a problem with me, nor that you don’t want my help. I wouldn’t believe your words if you told me you are going to leave because you are scared when you came all the way up here. I trust you enough,” he said pointing at the gun that Mark was holding against him with his own. “Do you?”

“I-”

“We are even, you can shoot me down first. I'll count down"

"This is ridiculous, you won't fix trust issues with this"

"You sure? Three”

“Xuxi, wait”

“Two”

“Yah” uttered Mark, fist closing so hard around the handle that his knuckles began turning white. "Stop it"

He took his finger to the trigger. 

“One”

Mark flinched, holding his breath. 

There was a subtle metallic click that reached his ears when Yukhei pulled the trigger of his gun, making Mark’s heart beat on his cage like a broken metronome, but there wasn’t anything in his chest when his hand came up to try and press his pulse down. 

No hole, no blood dripping down, no blinding pain to warn him of the end. 

Only a huge sneer on Yukhei's face as he pulled down the gun and looked at Mark with self-explanatory eyes that told him everything about the answer he was trying to get. 

“I thought so” he simply said, throwing the unloaded gun on his desk and finishing unbuttoning his slacks. “As I said, I have shit to do. I run this club, after all, someone has to open. We have a secret, the chemistry and the papers, you choose what you do with yourself next, Mark”

The aforesaid man was speechless, his mouth parted although soundless while the man grabbed his shirts with no buttons and pulled it over his bare shoulders before leaving him in the studio to his own decisions.

Was he so sure about Mark? Or was he simply that rash?

There was a way to know, but it chilled him with the sole stare at the weapon still in his hand.

He exhaled hard through his nose, body angling back to look over the back of the sofa, where his eyes spotted a small table with a tray of glasses and a large bottle of what looked like a golden alcoholic drink. 

Pulling up the gun, he pointed at the glass object and concentrated on his very lacking aiming skills, pulling the trigger while holding his breath again.

The bottle shattered in thousands of pieces that fell on the carpet with the dripping liquid that spilled on the table and floor without a space for a doubt. 

He closed his eyes, back plopping on the back of the seat. 

Maybe not for just a building, but for a dream? He would go through hell and high water.

Especially hell, for what it seemed. It couldn't be that hard if the one who scores you have a special place saved down there for himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> [ Twitter](https://twitter.com/leechailatten)  
> 


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